Why you should care about the Carrboro Citizen

Jock Lauterer has a straight to the point bit of witting in this weeks Carrboro Citizen called Why we should support our hometown newspaper. My fav part:

So why is this new paper special? How is it different from the others? And why should you care about whether The Citizen fails or flourishes?

To answer those questions, let’s go to little Yerington, Nev., where that town’s 3,700-circulation weekly paper, the Mason Valley News, bears the following unequivocal motto beneath it’s nameplate:

“THE ONLY NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD THAT GIVES A DAMN ABOUT YERINGTON.”

There you go. The Citizen is the only newspaper in the world that really cares about Carrboro. And here’s my proof: Why has there never before been a full-fledged, standalone, all-local newspaper in Carrboro?

Because historically publishers have looked at Carrboro not as a community but as a market.

Market obsession is the problem with media in general. Too much concern about profit and not enough about good journalism. Profit and good journalism aren’t mutally exlusive. But service is more important than gigantic paydays.

I’m going to snag that nameplate for a bit after I modify it to suit my needs.